Continental Airlines is a company that discovered it could not get out of bankruptcy until it had happy employees who enjoyed coming to work- as well as taking care of customers.
In the 1980’s, after mergers with People Express, NY Air, and others, Continental became a huge airline. Its CEO, Frank Lorenzo, in his zest for cutting cost, had beaten down union morale to such an extent that the airline also became notorious in the industry for lost baggage, late departures, and customer complaints.
Hassan Karatiya is a former Islamic militant in the Egyptian underground who traded in his bullets and bombs for a shot at success.
He was offered a small business loan to lure him back to mainstream society in exchange for a promise to abstain from violence.
The Ibn Khaldun Center leant him $300 and he now nets $2,000 a month selling fried liver sandwiches, a popular fast food, in crowded Cairo.
The center’s director says ex-militants are excellent risks. “They are imaginative and very forceful. They are not your lazy bums. These are people who are ambitious, articulate, and very high achievers.”
Mr. Karatiya’s success has led to the fulfillment of dozens more loans. This non-government program was established to get at the root cause of the rise in militant participation in Egypt: Many people are poor with no opportunities. The young people need hope to see that they, too, are part of society.
No one is more a catalyst for encouraging Good Samaritans these days than Oprah Winfrey. Her Oprah show has transformed the TV talk show format to something akin to the revival hour: Inspiring, motivating, and crusading to bring positive change into people’s lives.
For instance, to provide scholarships to low-income kids she decided to fill the World’s Largest Piggy Bank by asking her 15 million viewers to save their change.
Months after Drop-Off Day, they finally finished counting it all… over one million dollars was given. And Oprah matched it dollar for dollar. Additional donations, including $1 million from Garth Brooks in exchange for promoting the CD Sevens, brought the total to $3,557,083.94.
In 1997, Oprah created the Angel Network, which showcases and encourages Good Samaritans.
Chuck wrote to the show about his wife Ruth, who he calls “the angel in my life.” After her wedding rings were stolen she began scrimping and saving to buy new ones.
But after hearing Oprah’s call, she decided instead to donate the money to the World’s Largest Piggy Bank. “I’ve had the benefit of a little college,” Ruth told Oprah during the show in January, “and though I’m not a professional, this is a way I could give something back.”
On the show, Zales jewelers came on and after donating $5,000 to the piggy bank, surprised Ruth with a new pair of rings! Afterwards Ruth said she’d discovered that “to get your heart’s desire, sometimes you have to give it up.”
The Rainforest Action Network and other environmental groups have won pledges from the 536-store Home Depot chain and almost 1,000 other lumberyards to no longer purchase or sell wood harvested from redwood and other old-growth forests.
Weyerhaeuser, International Paper and Crane are experimenting with non-wood papers, which reduces deforestation, involves fewer pesticides, bleaches, and chemicals, and may create jobs in the bargain.
It appeared suddenly. Blackness blotted out my vision. A moment before, I’d focused on the cards that I held. Now I was blind. Then–like a puppet with its strings cut–I slumped over the table paralyzed. Time stopped. “Call 911!” a poker player shouted. Stunned, a resigned bitterness took over. “So this is how it happens. I’m havin’ a stroke, and I’m dying.” A siren approached.
Examining my brain scan, the emergency room neurosurgeon announced gravely, “Well, you didn’t have a stroke, but you do have a brain tumor–about the size of a golfball.”
Spring break may mean beaches, bikinis and beer for some, but students participating in Break Away, a national nonprofit group that steers people to community service projects, are delivering meals to AIDS patients, teaching Native American kids and repairing the environment in Utah.
Based at Vanderbilt University, Break Away’s services are available to students at more than 300 colleges and universities. It keeps a database of destinations and programs to help students tailor their breaks to personal and career goals. It will also help students identify ways of raising funds.
Executive director, Kevin Roberts calculates as many as 20,000 students will participate in such breaks this spring and social networking on their Facebook page is increasing that number. “Education is a central aspect of an alternative school break,” he said. “If we are helping to send students to Appalachia to build homes, then we need to educate them why there is a need to build those homes there. Working directly with the issues and problems society has is a great way for students to understand the world better.”
Students pay their own way and are encouraged to be as involved as possible in arranging the details of their breaks. “We ask students to become as invested in their trip as is possible,” said Roberts. “That includes deciding on destinations, recruiting fellow travelers and performing the work once they get there.”
“We have a focus index for those looking to serve in all kinds of fields, such as agriculture, working with children and youth, domestic violence education, immigration and migrant workers and homelessness.”
Roberts thinks it’s a safe bet that many students receive longer-lasting satisfaction from their community service breaks than from lying on the beach or frequenting bars. “One of our slogans is that spring break lasts seven days, “alternative breaks” last a lifetime,” he said.
(Written by The American News Service)
The Trumpeter Swan, native to the Atlantic seaboard for thousands of years, was killed by settlers in such numbers that by 1932 only 69 swans were left in the lower 48 states.
(Good Friday, April 10, 1998) The two-year-old peace talks in Northern Ireland finally produced a settlement this afternoon after an imposed deadline forced a 32-hour marathon debate among the parties.
Weary, but determined delegates from 2 countries and 8 different political factions signed off on the agreement which would, if ratified, establish self-rule for Northern Ireland, which had been under direct British control for 26 years. It would also create historic cooperation with the independent Republic of Ireland to the south.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mr. Ahern had arrived to give a needed push to the talks, in near-collapse three days ago, and President Clinton telephoned at several key points, even at 3:30 in the morning, urging several of the participants toward a resolution.
The Protestant (unionist) majority won assurances that Northern Ireland would remain under British authority until a majority of voters consented otherwise. And they will enjoy a clear majority in the new 108-member council created for their self-governance.
The Catholic nationalists, who want to rejoin the Irish Republic, have been a minority burdened by prejudice. They would receive a declaration of equality and mutual respect and participation in both a new north/south “ministerial council” and newly-established cross-border discussions with the Republic that would involve a range of issues like transportation and tourism.
“There’s a symbolism about Easter, and every Irishman knows that,” said Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party and a delegate at the talks. “The old Northern Ireland has died, and now, on Easter weekend, it is ready to rise again.”
Implementation of the agreement depends on a majority of Irish voters ratifying it on May 22,1998. The chances for passage are very good. (See below for May update)
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(May 23, 1998) Citizens in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland voted yesterday in landslides to accept the Good Friday Peace Accord signed last month at the all-party talks. (see April story below)
71% of Northern Ireland’s voters agreed to the plan alongside an even bigger 94% majority in the south.
The plan calls for altering the Irish constitution’s territorial claim to the North, and establishes new government institutions within which the two sides can work toward the uniting goal of a lasting peace.
Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) won early parole for its imprisoned members. Its president, Gerry Adams, said that in many ways Northern Ireland citizens have been “ahead of the politicians and have taken a leap of faith to move the whole situation forward.. I think we have to deliver on that.”
It was widely seen as a vote against the violence of 30 years, which has killed and injured thousands, but it also feels like the joining of two opposing camps, hearts opened in an effort to explore their Christian credo of loving their enemies. (Photo by Ardfern, CC)
Wildflowers in the desert southwest have burst forth in a profusion of bloom so rare that some species have regenerated after decades of dormancy. Normally, lack of rain and high temperatures inhibit the season’s length and display. But the weather pattern of El Niño began in November to deliver gentle, soaking rains and has kept temperatures mild, creating what one long-time resident and naturalist, Paul Johnson calls, “the mother of all Springs.”
The Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) convinced 80 buildings in downtown Toronto, Ontario to turn off their lights at night during bird migration seasons. Night traveling birds on migration routes are attracted to illuminated buildings especially on overcast nights. The World Wildlife Fund joined the effort creating the Bird Friendly Building Program to help spread the message to U.S. cities. Between 100 million and 1 billion birds are killed in North America each year from window collisions.
Study Brings Exciting Message of Hope:
The chances of getting cancer are declining… and the chances of dying of cancer are declining even faster, reported researchers at a news conference on March 12.
Based on Nat’l Cancer Institute’s tracking of trends within the U.S. population, in 1995, there were 70,000 fewer new cases of cancer diagnosed than if a 50-year trend would have continued. This drop in incidence, which began in the early 90’s, is significant because it indicates the receding of the disease itself.
We have to look beyond our past experiences and how are parents raised us. (If they were traumatic or regrettable experiences.) Psychologist, James Hillman, in his book, “the Soul’s Code” asserts that the theories viewing our early years as traumatic and life-shaping have caused more damage than the actual incidents! We are more than what our present mindset holds. And the next time you hear yourself blaming your actions on the way your parents raised you, stop, and say “I have a choice and I can transcend my presently perceived limitations.” I am more than what theories say I must have been reduced to.
“His mind was not disavantaged; his mind was not at risk; his mind was not underprivileged”
Former congressman Cleo Fields (D-LA), grew up in a family that was financially poor but intellectually rich. His mother told him, don’t let your income determine your outcome! As a congressman he fought for abolishing the use of economic labels because he thought the stigmatism of being set apart as “at risk”, or “disadvantaged”, or “underprivledged”, would do worse damage (to their self-esteem and therefore their determination) than the actual circumstances.
His mother, who took him often to the library, taught him he could be all he could dream of, because “his mind was not disadvantaged, his mind was not at risk, and his mind was not underprivledged.”
Cleo Fields’s story was told on Oprah, as part of a segment about Julian Okwu, photographer and author of the inspirational book, Face Forward: Young African American Men in a Critical Age
“The Flying Hospital”, an L-1011 wide body jet transformed into a medical care facility, visited Ecuador on a medical mission of mercy for three weeks in February.
It was the fifth overseas mission for the Flying Hospital, a self-contained, fully equipped outpatient medical facility built and operated by Operation Blessing International, a Christian humanitarian organization providing, “relief to individuals around the world who have neither access to, nor the ability to pay for primary medical attention”.
The retrofitted jet includes a surgical area with three operating stations, two dental stations, a minor surgery station, a pre- and post-op recovery area for 12 patients, x-ray and laboratory equipment and a seating section for 67 people that doubles as a classroom.
Who Says New York City is Cold and Impersonal?
“On a recent visit, my husband and I were standing in the TKTS line (to buy tickets) for 45 minutes when we learned that they took cash only,” Kim Maser, of Lewisburg, PA wrote in a letter to the New York Times Metro Diary. “We went to a cash machine, but it swallowed my husband’s card.”
“There we were, out-of-towners out of money.”
“The woman behind us in line offered to lend us the $80 to buy tickets. While I bought the tickets with the borrowed money, a panhandler asked my husband for a quarter.”
“When my husband replied that he had no cash and had lost his bank card, the panhandler asked him with great concern, ‘Would you like a quarter?’
“A relative loaned us the cash to repay the woman in line, and we’ll look for the panhandler next time.”
In natural systems like rainforests, one creature’s waste is another’s food, and virtually nothing is lost forever. Contrast this highly efficient natural system with human industry, whose smokestacks belch pollution and whose chemical processes dump solvents and other wastes into streams that poison, rather than feed.
Now, an unlikely pairing of radical environmentalists and industrial corporations is trying to prove that industry can mimic the rainforests and increase profits at the same time.
As part of a broad agreement with rainforest preservationists, two corporate subsidiaries of the Mitsubishi empire have pledged to translate a concept called “industrial ecology” into practice.
Among other steps, Mitsubishi Electric of America and Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America will begin eliminating nonrenewable and hazardous materials from their production processes, in cooperation with the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network.
Trenka, who has been working with Coors Brewing Co. to implement waste-free industrial processes, said these corporations are following what boils down to a simple ecological method.
“Take a look at what goes in the front gate and then what goes out the back. Is there anything coming out the back that is of value to somebody else? Industrial ecology is about closing that natural loop,” he said.
In attempting to close this loop, Coors has developed products such as biodegradable plastics that have become more profitable than its beer, according to those working with the company.
As part of the new pact negotiated with RAN, Mitsubishi Motor Sales will pay into a fund earmarked to preserve enough rainforest to offset the carbon in tailpipe emissions from its Montero LS cars and will encourage new owners to do the same. Since rainforests absorb carbon emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, preserving plots of rare rainforest can help slow the global warming trend scientists have raised alarms about.
Rainforest activists are spreading the word about The Natural Step, a set of principles embracing the notion that materials should not be produced at a rate faster than they can be broken down and integrated into nature’s existing cycles. These concepts resonated with Tachi Kiuchi, the former CEO of Mitsubishi Electric of America, who negotiated the agreement after paying a visit to the Malaysian rainforest.
“I learned that rainforests are more efficient, and more creative, than any business in the world,” said Kiuchi, who is now managing director of the Japanese parent company, Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
In one of the first practical steps toward acting more like a rainforest, the staffs of the Mitsubishi subsidiaries will receive training in The Natural Step principles. In addition, the companies will set up “ecological accounting systems,” which track the volume of resources or wastes per unit of sales. Eco-accounting is proving an effective tool for companies to cut costs and boost environmental performance, by finding ways to provide more services using less energy, materials, land or other resources, according to advocates.
The agreement ends a 5-year boycott by RAN against the electronics and motors arms of the Mitsubishi “keiretsu,” or family of corporations. But the rainforest network will continue the boycott of other Mitsubishi companies, said spokesman J.C. Callendar.
Rainforest defenders have long criticized Mitsubishi for its connections to allegedly destructive logging operations in Borneo and its large imports of old-growth timber that comes from rainforests. “We wanted Mitsubishi Corp. to hear the message from its corporate siblings instead of us,” Callendar said, explaining the separate peace negotiated with the two subsidiaries. “That approach would carry a little more weight than having them get the information from their adversaries.”
While keeping up the pressure on the larger Mitsubishi Corp.’s forestry practices, the environmental group will work with the American subsidiaries to phase out their own old-growth timber use this spring and use of all wood products of any kind by 2002.
Environmental advocates say companies such as Mitsubishi, which Fortune magazine has described as the world’s largest industrial and financial conglomerate, are dispelling the image of industrial ecology as the sole preserve of tree-hugging entrepreneurs in California and a few other spots.
Ed Cohen-Rosenthal, an associate professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y., pointed out that so-called eco-industrial parks are being developed in such places as Baltimore, Md., Trenton, N.J. and Cape Charles, N.Y.
“Our major products are waste, not work,” said Cohen-Rosenthal, referring to the vast amounts of waste generated by industry compared with the amount of products and jobs. These industrial parks, he stated, “try to link companies to communities by using resources more efficiently to develop good jobs and improve the environment.”
Perhaps one of the most surprising converts to the industrial ecology cause is a company that has long been an object of the wrath of liberals due to its support of conservative causes.
Coors Brewing Co., however, was the first brewer to switch from glass containers to aluminum cans and then, by 1960, was offering to buy them back at a penny each. When aluminum suppliers refused to recycle, Coors bought and developed European technology that allowed the company to manufacture cans made of 90 percent recycled materials.
William Coors, an early industrial ecologist, argued that “all pollution and all waste is lost profit” and encouraged his employees to find new uses for the technologies and waste products from the brewery. Today, many of those innovations have been spun off into a separate company, ACX Technologies, whose revenues between 1992 and today have grown from the equivalent of 25 to 50 percent of revenues represented by beer sales, according to Bill Shireman, president of Sacramento-based Global Futures.
The new Coors products include aluminum cans with the highest recycled content in the industry, photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to electricity and organic plastics from corn that biodegrade when their useful life is over.
Now, after years of struggle with the rainforest activists, the Mitsubishi subsidiaries are hoping to turn the ecological principles to their industrial advantage. “I learned that saving the environment is an opportunity to pursue business opportunities that use creativity and technology to substitute for trees, for resources of any kind,” said Kiuchi, the former Mitsubishi CEO.
“Corporate leaders must structure companies so that they are not structured like a machine — which cannot learn — but like a living system, which can,” he said. In the process, the companies have vowed to protect local Third World communities that rely on the natural resources often depleted through industrial practices. An unusual pledge to support “prosperous human communities, rooted in place, with adequate food, potable water, a clean environment and meaningful work” is at the heart of the agreement with RAN.
“This is a tiny planet, and companies don’t have to be our adversaries,” said Randy Hayes, RAN’s executive director. “I see this agreement as a template,” he said, noting that other corporations that use the template can assist in “the transition to a more sustainable society.” Tom Chapman, former vice president of Mitsubishi Electric of America and a participant in the negotiating process, added: “Industrial ecology is the only way out of large environmental problems such as global warming and other impacts of industrialization. The great thing is the early adopters like us gain a competitive edge.” (American News Service)
Hundreds of communities and churches across the country are participating in Random Acts of Kindness Week, February 9-16.
You may have seen the bumper stickers. You may have read the book, Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty (first published by Conari Press in California, in 1991). You may even remember an article by Anne Herbert reprinted in the Readers Digest in the 1980’s.
But, it all started with an inspiration that came to Ms. Herbert in a Sausalito restaurant that caused her to scribble these words on a place mat: “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
Science also shows the kindness benefits the practitioner of the act, as well, rewarding them with increased energy and well-being. Even people viewing the kindness are infused with positive benefits.
Consider Doing These Random Acts of Kindness This Week-
Jeanna Dodd was worried about making ends meet so she went to the Fairfax, Va., food bank for help. And, believing one should give as one receives, she volunteered a couple of hours unloading trucks in exchange for canned goods.
Later, while at home she struggled forcefully to open one of the soup cans. But the Campbell’s lid seemed suspicious. It suddenly popped off and out tumbled jewels, gold, silver, rings, a bracelet, and a Rolex watch!
The cream of asparagus soup can was not a can at all but a trick container used to hide valuables from burglars. It seems the realistic can fooled even the owners who must have donated it to a food drive.
Dodd, 24, thought it was an answer to a prayer…she had just finished hoping to God for the ability to pay the rent that month.
But instead of cashing in, which could have netted her $7,000, she reported the incident and waited.
The true owners read about the jewelry in the morning paper, and only then came to realize their charitable blunder.
They set out, not only to claim their valuables, but to reward the good Samaritan. They presented Dodd $1,000 and a pair of gold earrings…
After nearly 30 years of violence between Protestants and Catholics, a July cease-fire remains in place and Britain’s new leader Tony Blair has coaxed historic enemies to sit down at the negotiating table.
In September, leaders of Sinn Fein, the political voice of the (IRA) Irish Republican Army, joined the British and Irish governments and other parties representing all sides in the historic gathering. Sinn Fein, said they were ready to “compromise, compromise, compromise” to achieve a negotiated settlement to Ireland’s civil unrest.
Former US senator George Mitchell said in late 1997 that he believed in his “heart and soul” an agreement would be reached in the Northern Ireland peace talks that he chairs.
To date, many parts of Northern Ireland have returned to near- normality while negotiations proceed, though painstakingly slow.
(Photo by generalising- CC -flickr)
Portland Trail Blazers basketball star, Jermaine O’Neal has an angel…at least his mother thinks so.
He was trapped in his car in a ditch after a truck slammed into him and left the scene in early December.
